xnview wrote:A new plugin made by the great author of Photofiltre (Antonio Da Cruz) is available here, so please give us your feedback!

This new AddOn "PhotoMasque" provides really good effects. Some brief info:

What PhotoMasque does:PhotoMasque overlays the currently opened image with a mask - this way you can create special borders and other effects. Various masks are provided e.g. snowflake, fog, keyhole, and some more.

Screenshot: Applying a mask with PhotoMasque:

Installation"PhotoMasque" is an AddOn for XnView. To install it, you extract the downloaded ZIP archive in the folder "AddOn". Then you (re)start XnView.

If installed properly, XnView will list PhotoMasque as AddOn in the PlugIn info dialog, which you can open via menu "Info > PlugIns Information", in the drop down list select "AddOns".

Using PhotoMasqueFor starting PhotMasque, you ...1. open an image in view mode.2. select menu item "Filter > PhotoMasque (1.0)". 3. Open a mask by clicking on the folder icon right to the edittext "Mask".4. In dialog "Open" select one of the masks provided. (you can use own mask files, also).5. Confirm "Open" dialog with "Open".6. Activate checkbox "Preview" for seeing a preview of your mask and settings.7. Changes settings (Opacity, Color, ...) as desired.8. Confirm with "OK".

Last edited by helmut on Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:24 am, edited 5 times in total.

Works pretty well. (Although it'd be really good if xnview supported saving images with alpha transparency.)
One minor bug though, the preview option doesn't remain checked after you apply the filter, you have to check it again the next time you go to use it.

• Also, I dislike the colour-palette and its auto-close feature.
- For once, I much prefer the old good Win one (with several saved custom colours, like we have now in XnView).

• To process relatively small images, we miss other masks¦patterns having smaller and denser items.
- For instance, with snowflakes on a pic W=251 - H=301 pixels, the items are too big and spread,
it doesn't result in a very realistic effect.
- I drew a denser one (from the smallest items), it's better but not wonderful yet…

• But it's a good start, and definitely a very useful add-on which improves XnView a lot !

…If installed properly, XnView will list PhotoMasque as AddOn in the PlugIn info dialog, which you can open via menu "Info > PlugIns Information", in the drop down list select "AddOns".

• You are not bound to do so. When the files are in the <AddOn> sub-folder,
XnView creates a “dynamic” entry in the View Mode >> Filter Menu.
¤ Aside : BTW, this “dynamic entries” feature could be¦is an issue to solve before we switch to menus as text…